The past year-plus has been good creatively in an unlikely product category–insurance. There’s the Farmers Insurance “Lord of Mishap” spot from Campbell Ewald, the Liberty Mutual pay-it-forward campaign from Hill Holliday and Travelers’ “Snowball” out of Fallon. “Snowball” not only garnered a primetime Emmy nomination but also was one of the entries helping Dante Ariola of MJZ to earn the DGA Award this year as best commercial director of 2006.
However, even the most stellar creative cannot buck reality. Consider Southern California, which has been hit hard by wildfires, with nearly 2,000 homes destroyed.
Thousands of claims have been filed as insurance companies will hopefully make residents victimized by the fire reasonably close to being whole again.
Yet beyond the immediate recovery and rebuilding efforts, there have been some disturbing rumblings. For one, some say that homeowners will find that claims they submit to insurers will result in higher rates or possibly dropped policies.
Whether this is fair or not is subject to debate. On one hand, the risks are high in insuring homes in areas prone to wildfires. On the flip side, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times, major carriers have been turning annual profits of $5 billion apiece from their home insurance policy business in California, translating into a staggeringly lucrative margin and a more than ample reserve to deal with major disasters and still turn a healthy profit.
Meanwhile there’s word that all claims end up in privately run databases that are accessed by the insurance industry to determine what rates they’ll charge–or if they’ll provide coverage at all. Thus a claim filed with one insurer can be used by another to raise premiums or deny coverage. Even if someone has never filed a claim, that person could face exorbitant rates or the prospect of no protection if he or she has bought a house where someone else submitted past claims–be it for a fire, an earthquake or anything.
Still there’s the school of thought that if a property has proven to be a risk, then insurers have the right to take that into account. The databases, though, don’t reflect if the new owners have made improvements to the property to mitigate that risk.
In the wake of the California wildfires, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on the U.S. Senate floor that it’s become “pretty clear to me that we have to develop some catastrophic government-helped insurance. Allstate Insurance Company pulled out of California–because they said it’s catastrophe-prone…Allstate doesn’t want any part of it. So they are not insuring in California any longer [writing no more new homeowner policies]. Companies must not be allowed to cherry-pick the United States and only insure areas that are safe and secure, and say to other areas, ‘You’re on your own.'”
Thus the dilemma for agency creatives is simply no matter how great your work, how classic the slogan, it can be made to look foolish in light of reality. Consider the query which tags many Allstate commercials today: “Are you in good hands?”
“Mufasa: The Lion King” and “Sonic 3” Rule Box Office For 1st Weekend Of 2025
The Walt Disney Co.'s "Mufasa: The Lion King" claimed the No. 1 spot on the North American box office charts over the first weekend of 2025.
The photorealistic "Lion King" prequel earned $23.8 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Paramount's "Sonic the Hedgehog 3," which has dominated the past two weekends, wasn't far behind.
"Sonic 3" stayed close with a 3-day estimate of $21.2 million, bringing its total domestic earnings to $187.5 million and helping the overall franchise cross $1 billion worldwide. "Mufasa's" running total is slightly less, with $169.2 million.
In third place, Focus Features' "Nosferatu" remake defied the fate of so many of its genre predecessors and fell only 39% in its second weekend. Horror films typically fall sharply after the first weekend and anything less than a 50% decline is notable. "Nosferatu," which added 140 screens, claimed $13.2 million in ticket sales, bringing its running total to $69.4 million since its Christmas debut. The film, directed by Robert Eggers, already surpassed its reported production budget of $50 million, though that figure does not account for marketing and promotion expenses).
No new wide releases opened this weekend, leaving the box office top 10 once again to holdovers from previous weeks. Several have been in theaters since Thanksgiving. One of those, "Moana 2," claimed the No. 4 spot for Disney in its sixth weekend in theaters. The animated sequel earned another $12.4 million, bumping its global total to $960.5 million.
The Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," dipped only slightly in its second weekend, bringing in $8.1 million. With $41.7 million total, it's Searchlight's highest grossing film since Disney acquired the company in... Read More